Thistle and Rose - Amy Walton (beginner reading books for adults .txt) 📗

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The question had been in her mind a very long time: now it was out, and she was almost frightened by her own rashness. Mr Goodwin, however, seemed neither surprised nor annoyed.

"Well, Delia," he answered, with a gentle shake of the head, "I suppose two things have kept me in Dornton--two very strong things--poverty and pride. I had my chance once, but it came in a shape I couldn't bring myself to accept. `There is a tide in the affairs of men,' you know, and if one neglects it--"

He broke off and bent over his violin, which he had taken up from the ground.

"Of course," said Delia, looking at him with great affection, "I'm glad you didn't go, for my own sake. You and music make Dornton bearable."

"You always speak so disdainfully of poor Dornton," said Mr Goodwin, drawing his bow softly across his violin. "Now, I've known it longer than you, and really, when I look back, I've been very happy. Dornton has given me the best any place has to give--people to love and care for. After Prissy's marriage, there were some lonely days, to be sure. I could not feel very happy about that, for she seemed to be taken out of my life altogether, and there came sadder days still when she died. You were only a little toddling child then, Delia, and yet it seemed a short while before we began to be friends; and"--holding out his hand to her--"we've been friends ever since, haven't we? So, you see, I ought not to be ungrateful to Dornton."

"And now," added Delia, with an effort, "there is Anna, your grandchild; perhaps you will make her famous, though you wouldn't be famous yourself."

Mr Goodwin shook his head.

"Anna will never be famous in that way," he said. "She has a sweet, affectionate manner, but there's nothing that reminds me of her mother at all, or of our family. It's quite an effort to realise that she is Prissy's child. It's a very curious feeling."

"Have you seen her often?" asked Delia.

"Only twice. I don't at all suppose, as matters stand, that I shall ever see much of her. I am so busy, you see, and she tells me her aunt has all sorts of plans for her--lessons, and so on."

"But," said Delia, rather indignantly, "she _ought_ to come and see you often."

"I shall not complain if she doesn't, and I shall not be surprised. There was a matter, years ago, in which I differed from Mrs Forrest, and I have never been to Waverley since: we are quite friendly when we meet, but there can never be really cordial relations between us."

"If I were Anna," began Delia, impetuously--

"But you are _not_ Anna," interrupted Mr Goodwin, with a smile; "you are Delia Hunt, and you are made of different materials. If I am not mistaken, Anna is affectionate and yielding, and will be influenced by those she is with. And then she's very young, you see; she could not oppose her aunt and uncle, and I'm sure I do not wish it. I shall not interfere with her life at Waverley: the Forrests are kind people, and I feel sure she will be very happy there. She will do very well without me."

He turned towards his pupil and added, rather wistfully, "I should like _you_ to be friends with her, though, Delia; it would be a comfort to me."

"Indeed, I will try my best, Professor," she exclaimed, earnestly. Her jealousy of Anna seemed very small and mean, and she felt anxious to atone for it.

"That's well," said Mr Goodwin, with a contented air. "I know you will do what you promise; and now it's my turn to play the sonata, and yours to listen."

As the first plaintive notes of the violin filled the little room, Delia threw herself into the window-seat, leaned back her head, and gave herself up to enjoyment.

The Professor's playing meant many things to her. It meant a journey into another country where all good and noble things were possible; where vexations and petty cares could not enter, nor anything that thwarted and baffled. It meant a sure refuge for a while from the small details of her life in Dornton, which she sometimes found so wearisome. The warning tones of the church clock checked her flight through these happy regions, and brought her down to earth just as the Professor's last note died away.

"Oh, how late it is?" she exclaimed, as she started up and put on her hat. "Good-bye, Professor. Oh, if I could only make it speak like that!"

"Patience, patience," he said, with his kind smile; "we all hear and see better things than we can express, you know, but that will come to us all some day."


CHAPTER FIVE.

ANNA MAKES FRIENDS.

Sweet language will multiply friends; and a fair-speaking tongue will
increase kind greetings.--_Ecclesiasticus_.

Delia kept her promise in mind through all the various duties and occupations of the next few days, and wondered how she should carry it out. She began, apart from the wish to please the Professor, to have a great desire to know Anna for her own sake. Would they be friends? and what sort of girl was she? Mr Goodwin had told her so very little. Affectionate, sweet-tempered, yielding. She might be all that without being very interesting. Still she hoped they might be able to like each other; for although the Hunts had a wide acquaintance, Delia had few friends of her own age, nor any one with whom she felt in entire sympathy, except the Professor. Delia was not popular in Dornton, and people regretted that such a "sweet" woman as Mrs Hunt should have a daughter who was often so blunt in her manners, and so indisposed to make herself pleasant. Her life, therefore, though full of busy matters, was rather lonely, and she would have made it still more so, if possible, by shutting herself up with her violin and her books. The bustling sociabilities of her home, however, prevented this, and she was constantly obliged, with inward revolt, to leave the things she loved for some social occasion, or to pick up the dropped stitches of Mrs Hunt's household affairs.

There were endless little matters from morning till night for Delia to attend to, and it was only by getting up very early that she found any time at all for her studies and her music. In winter this was hard work, and progress with her violin almost impossible for stiff, cold fingers; but no one at her home took Delia's music seriously: it was an accomplishment, a harmless amusement, but by no means to be allowed to take time from more important affairs. It did not matter whether she practised or not, but it did matter that she should be ready to make calls with her mother, or to carry soup to someone in Mrs Hunt's district who had been overlooked. She would have given up her music altogether if her courage had not been revived from time to time by Mr Goodwin, and her ambition rekindled by hearing him play; as it was, she always came back to it with fresh heart and hope after seeing him.

For nearly a week after her last visit, Delia awoke every morning with a determination to walk over to Waverley, and each day passed without her having done so. At last, however, chance arranged her meeting with Anna. Coming into the drawing-room one afternoon in search of her mother, she found, not Mrs Hunt, but a tall girl of fourteen, with light yellow hair, sitting in the window, with a patient expression, as though she had been waiting there some time. Delia advanced uncertainly: she knew who it was; there was only one stranger likely to appear just now. It must be Anna Forrest. But it was so odd to find her there, just when she had been thinking of her so much, that for a moment she hardly knew what to say.

The girl, however, was quite at her ease.

"I am Anna Forrest," she said; "Mrs Hunt asked me to come in--she went to find you. You are Delia, are you not?"

She had a bright, frank manner, with an entire absence of shyness, which attracted Delia immediately. She found, on inquiry, that Mrs Hunt had met Anna in the town with her aunt, and had asked her to come in. Mrs Forrest had driven home, and Anna was to walk back after tea.

"And have you been waiting long?" asked Delia.

"It must have been an hour, I think," said Anna, "because I heard the church clock. But it hasn't seemed long," she added, hastily; "I've been looking out at the pigeons in the garden."

Delia felt no doubt whatever that Mrs Hunt had been called off in some other direction, and had completely forgotten her guest. However, here was Anna at last.

"Come up-stairs and take off your hat in my room," she said.

Delia's room was at the top of the house--a garret with a window looking across the red-tiled roofs of the town to the distant meadows, through which glistened the crooked silver line of the river Dorn. She was fond of standing at this window in her few idle moments, with her arms crossed on the high ledge, and her gaze directed far-away: to it were confided all the hopes, and wishes, and dreams, which were, as a rule, carefully locked up in her own breast, and of which only one person in Dornton even guessed the existence.

Anna glanced curiously round as she entered. The room had rather a bare look, after the bright prettiness of Waverley, though it contained all Delia's most cherished possessions--a shelf of books, a battered old brown desk, her music-stand, and her violin.

"Oh," she exclaimed, as her eye fell on the last, "can you play the violin? Will you play to me?"

Delia hesitated: she was not fond of playing to people who did not care for music, though she was often obliged to do so; but Anna pressed her so earnestly that she did not like to be ungracious, and, taking up her violin, played a short German air, which she thought might please her visitor.

Anna meanwhile paid more attention to her new acquaintance than to her performance, and looked at her with great interest. There was something about Delia's short, compact figure; her firm chin; the crisp, wavy hair which rose from her broad, low forehead like a sort of halo, which gave an impression of strength and reliability not unmingled with self-will. This last quality, however, was not so marked while she was playing. Her face then was at its best, and its usual somewhat defiant air softened into a wistfulness which was almost beauty. Before the tune was finished, Anna was quite ready to rush into a close friendship, if Delia would respond to it, but of this she felt rather in doubt.

"How beautifully you play!" she exclaimed, as Delia dropped her bow, and shut up her music-book.

A very little smile curled Delia's lips.

"That shows one thing," she answered, "you don't know much about music, or you would not call my playing beautiful."

"Well, it